Ulugan Bay, Palawan. The Philippines. But that big ship… I don’t recognize it. What’s going on?” The technician seemed to ignore him, but he had depressed his mike switch and had sent a message down to the Battle Staff area.
Then, as the satellite imagery of the warship zoomed in closer, maintaining remarkably high resolution even in ultra-closeups, Stone realized that what he was watching was not a Filipino ship.
Just then Stone’s headset clicked to life. “Rat — Tyler here,” the Commander in Chief of SAC said. “Sergeant Rowe says you seemed to recognize that harbor and that ship. What is it?”
The technician pointed to a button near the base of the microphone on the desk in front of him, and Stone depressed the button and replied, “Yes, sir, Ulugan Bay on Palawan in the Philippines. Palawan is a large island about two hundred miles southwest of Manila. That ship looks like the Chinese destroyer
There was a long pause; then: “Well, you’re right about the Philippines,” Tyler said. “But what’s the Spratly Islands? I never heard of them.”
“It’s a small island chain between Vietnam and Palawan in the South China Sea,” Stone replied. “China claims them but legally occupies the lower one-third; the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia occupy the northern third, with the middle third a neutral zone. Those five countries have been fighting over the islands for decades.”
“Well, the fighting has just reached a new level, Rat,” Tyler said dryly, “because someone set off a nuke right near the Philippines just a few minutes ago.”
Richard Stone was so surprised that he forgot to press the mike button. “A
Tyler and half-a-dozen other staff members in the Battle Staff area looked up in the Support Staff area. The nearreal-time satellite photo of the Chinese ship had changed several times by the time a shocked Tyler asked, “That Chinese warship carries nuclear missiles? I never heard that before, Rat.” He shook his head, stared hard at the charts of the South China Sea region, then rubbed dried sweat from his eyes in exasperation. “Jesus Christ, what’s a Chinese ship doing cruising around the Philippines with nukes aboard?” He turned to Stone again and asked, “Can you verify that, Rat? What kind of nuclear missiles? How many…?”
“It’s never been verified as far as I know, sir,” Stone replied, “just like we never verify that American warships carry nukes. But it’s a well-known fact that EF5-class destroyers carry at least two Fei Lung-9 antiship cruise missiles with RK-55 warheads — twenty-kiloton yield. I can’t believe the Chinese would actually cook one off, though.”
“Do the Filipinos have nuclear weapons?” Stanczek asked.
“Not to my knowledge, sir,” Stone replied. “We had some nuclear weapons stockpiled at Clark for a few years, but they were removed years ago.”
“Could they have built a weapon of their own? Are they advanced enough to do that?”
“I’m surprised there was a Philippine Navy out there for a nuke to destroy,” Stone said. “Everything they have is at least twenty to fifty years old, and most of it is World War Two vintage. As far as weaponry, they have Sea Lance and Harpoon missiles, but nothing more potent than that. No, they couldn’t have built a nuclear device.”
Stone could see Tyler shaking his head in amazement at the news, and it was then that he began to get a real feeling for the pressure that was on Tyler and his staff right now. In a few minutes the President of the United States was going to get on the line with Tyler and ask him how he should respond to the incident.
That call came a few moments later, but not from the President.
After a ten-second warning tone on the microwave telephone hookup, a voice began, “All stations, all stations, this is RENEGADE on Zero-Tango action teleconference network. Security classification is Top Secret. All stations stand by. Network poll in progress. National Command Authority, White House…”.
While the lengthy teleconference poll continued, Tyler got on the intercom to Stone. “Rat, tell me more about the Chinese and the Philippines. Are the Chinese a threat to the Philippines or is their involvement limited only to the Spratly Islands? I mean, could they have been victims here, caught in the explosion?”
